Here, the primary technology repackaging is its form of locomotion,inspired by the biomechanics of a cockroach, whose pliant legs allow itto quickly scurry over rough, broken terrain without thinking about it.These make a complete revolution (unlike the roach's legs), but themechanics of them are similar—neither RHex nor Prime-8 need sensors tomove and balance. To see some of the relation between Prime-8 and RHex,RHex climbing some stairs:

Prime-8 does more than run circles around other robots, though—itintelligently re-balances itself automatically, plays games, can runamok autonomously, shoot rockets and synchronize with other Prime-8s.It's controlled via an infrared remote that's shaped like a genericvideogame controller. It's designed for kids around 8 years old. (Ihope they haven't played too many videogames before picking Prime-8'scontroller, actually, since there's a lack of precision in the controlsthat someone used to precise responses from inputs might be frustratedwith.)

That said, it's a lot of fun to play with, and pretty easy to pickup and start slamming into stuff. I'd love to run it around on somerougher terrain, as well, since it's designed to be tough—supposedly,it can hold up after falling off of a table. There's definitely a morevisceral joy playing with Prime-8 than with some of the other robotsI've play with—the speed, the form (not a generic robot shape), thekinetic-ness of it.

Both Prime-8 and Penbo launch on QVC on July 25 for $100 and $80,respectively, before hitting Amazon a little bit later, and possiblyonline stores for Walmart and Target for the holidays.

Bossa Nova is planning on using the same movement tech in futurerobots as well, so they all move in roughly the same manner—Penbo, apenguin, uses the same movement system, just slightly tweaked so itwaddles.